For a crazed second, I imagine saying, I’m Adora Montoni, Don Agnello’s daughter, and I demand you release this man immediately. I don’t, because they’ll probably laugh at me for being delusional. In these sweats with my hair a mess, I don’t look anything like the polished and protected mafia princess I once was. Or they could be from a rival gang and kill me too. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with who wants who dead in Malus. People change alliances like they change their clothes.
Fear beats inside me. The smart thing to do would be to leave the blue-eyed stranger to his fate. I can’t help him. It’s four against two, and they’re all armed. I picture running away, but this man would be tortured and killed with no one to hear his screams. Sadness washes over me. This man no doubt has family, and they will weep over his desecrated body when he’s found discarded in a ditch.
The injured man’s voice rises in desperation. “She didn’t see anything. Please, just let her go.”
A small, shaky voice I barely recognize as my own whispers, “What?”
Is he begging formylife? One of the thugs kicks the bloodied man in the ribs. I wince as his face contorts in pain.
Again, something about this man’s face reminds me of someone I’ve met or seen in a photograph, but it’s impossible to place him under all the blood and bruises.
“Stop that,” I burst out. “Why are you doing this to him?”
“This psycho fuck would gut you the second he gets free,” the man with the baseball bat sneers. “Walk away while you can.”
The captive’s expression is bleak, but even through the grime and dark streaks of blood, I can see the striking, clean lines of his face. His angular jaw is marred by a scrape, and his high cheekbones are swollen and purpled. His despairing eyes hold a piercing intelligence. The thought that those eyes might lose their light makes my heart ache.
The man with the bat is losing his patience. “Last chance, bitch. Turn around and walk away, or once we’re finished with him, we’ll have you for dessert.”
The other three men leer at me like they’re hoping I’ll stick around, and my mouth goes dry.
“Please, just go,” the captive urges me, his voice rising with desperation. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”
The man with the bat jabs him with it. “Drop that fake kicked-puppy act, you one-man slaughterhouse. You’re not fooling anyone.”
The blond man winces, and then he looks desperately around my feet. A knife with a wickedly sharp blade is lying on the cracked tiles a little to my left.
It unlocks a flood of unwelcome memories. I feel warm blood soaking into my lilac dress, and the screams of dying people chase after me. Acid-like guilt has shocked me out of sleep night after night.
Am I going to do it again? Just run away?
I scour the men for clues as to who they are. They each have scorpions inked into their flesh, on the backs of their hands, their arms, or the sides of their necks. I’ve known what a scorpion tattoo means since I was in middle school, and that gives me an idea. A reckless idea, but it’s all I have. The Dervishis are a crime family who moved into the north of the city some years ago, and their hallmark is cruel and sadistic violence. My father is always railing against them, though he’s no better than they are just because he wears suits and lives in a twenty-million-dollar house.
Planting my feet more firmly, I let my lip curl. “Dervishi scum.”
The ringleader’s face transforms in hatred as he shifts his attention toward me. “What did you just say, bitch?”
The young man’s eyes widen in horror, and he gives me a tiny, scared shake of his head.
I put my hand on my hip and take a step to my left, and my foot lands deliberately on the blade of the knife. Intent on the woman daring to disrespect them, the men don’t notice.
“You heard me. Why don’t you run back into the hole you crawled out of?”
Outrage spreads over the Dervishis’ faces. They’re distracted from their victim. Now’s my chance.
I propel the knife across the floor with my foot, and it feels like an eternity before the blond man snatches it from the tiles. He doesn’t fumble. Heseizesit, and in one fluid, coiled motion, he rises to his full height. He’s a wall of muscle, far larger than he appeared on the ground, and he moves with a predator’s grace that chills me to the bone. The wince of pain that I expect from him never comes. Instead, a smile unfurls across his face, slow and vicious, and my blood turns to ice.
The Dervishis’ anger at me melts into shock as they see their “captive” holding a weapon. The blond man is a head taller than any of them, and his muscles are straining against his bloodied clothes. He made himself look smaller and weaker while he was on the ground. Why did he do that?
My stomach clenches with a new kind of fear, and it’s not about the Dervishis.
The blond man reaches out and yanks one of his captors closer by his hair. The Dervishi flails for his companions and begs to be saved, but before anyone can move, the blond man draws the blade—the blade I gave him—across his captive’s throat. I’m transfixed in horror as the Dervishi makes a choking sound, and blood sprays everywhere.
The blond man’s blue eyes are dark with malice as he lunges for his next victim. He stabs the man in the stomach over and over, the blade moving in a blur.
“You’ve killed us all, you stupid bitch,” the Dervishi ringleader roars. He lifts his bat and swings in a futile attempt to defend himself.
The blond man ducks, and then jams the knife through his attacker’s throat. He leans in close so his grinning face is all the dying Dervishi can see. He twists the blade, and a sickeningcrunch and squelch fills the air, nauseating me. The Dervishi dies, and slumps to the ground.
